“Nay, son. I won’t allow Duncan Cameron to harm the lass.”
Relief flooded Crispen9;s expression and suddenly he looked extremely weary. He swayed in his chair and leaned over on Ewan’s arm.
For a long moment, Ewan stared down at his son’s head, resisting the urge to run his fingers through the unruly tresses. Ewan couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride at the way Crispen had fought for the woman who’d saved him. According to Alaric, Crispen had bullied Alaric and his men the entire way back to the McCabe keep. And now he was bullying Ewan into keeping a promise Crispen had made in the McCabe name.
“He’s asleep,” Alaric murmured.
Ewan carefully ran his hand over his son’s head and held him solidly against his side.
“Who is this woman, Alaric? What is she to Cameron?”
Alaric made a sound of frustration. “I wish I could tell you. The lass wouldn’t say a word to me the entire time she was with me. She and Crispen were as tight-lipped as two monks with vows of silence. All I know is that when I found her, she was severely beaten. I’ve never seen a lass abused as she was. It turned my stomach, Ewan. There’s no excuse for a man to ever treat a woman such as he did. And yet, as badly injured as she was, she took on me and my men when she thought we were a threat to Crispen.”
“She said nothing the entire time she was with you? Let nothing slip? Think, Alaric. She had to have said something. It simply isn’t a woman’s nature to be silent for prolonged periods of time.”
Alaric grunted. “Someone should tell her that. I’m telling you, Ewan, she said nothing. She stared at me like I was some kind of toad. Worse, she had Crispen acting like I was the enemy. The two whispered like conspirators and glared at me when I dared intervene.”
Ewan frowned and drummed his fingers on the solid wood of the table. “What could Cameron want with her? Furthermore, what was a highland lass doing in a lowland abbey? Highlanders guard their daughters as jealously as gold. I can’t see a daughter being packed off to an abbey days away.”
“Unless the lass was being punished,” Alaric pointed out. “Maybe she was caught out in an indiscretion. More than one lass has been wooed between the sheets outside the sanctity of marriage.”
“Or maybe she was a difficult harridan her father despaired of,” Ewan murmured, as he remembered how difficult and recalcitrant she’d been just moments ago. That scenario he could believe. But again, she would have had to have committed an egregious sin for a father to send her so far away.
Alaric chuckled. “She’s spirited all right.” Then he sobered. “But she protected Crispen well. She put her body between him and others more than once, and she suffered greatly for it.”
Ewan mulled on that truth for a long moment. Then he looked up at Alaric again. “You saw these injuries?”
Alaric nodded. “I did. Ewan, the bastard kicked her. There were imprints of a boot on her back.”
p height="0em" width="1em" align="justify">Ewan cursed, the sound echoing across the hall. “I wish I knew what her connection to Cameron was. And why he wants her badly enough to abduct her from an abbey and beat her senseless when she refused to marry him. Why he’d then think to use my son to sway her.”
“It would have worked, too,” Alaric said in a grim voice. “The lass is very protective of Crispen. If Cameron had threatened him, she would have consented. I’m positive of that.”
“This presents a problem for me,” Ewan said quietly. “Cameron wants her. My son wants me to protect her. The lass only wants to be gone. And then there is the mystery of who she is.”
“If Cameron discovers her whereabouts, he’ll come for her,” Alaric warned.
Ewan nodded. “So he will.”
The brothers’ gazes met and held. Alaric nodded his acceptance of Ewan’s silent declaration. If Cameron wanted a fight, the McCabes would be more than willing to give him one.
“What about the lass?” Alaric finally asked.
“I’ll make that determination once I’ve heard the whole story from her,” Ewan said.
He was confident that he could be a reasonable man, and once she saw how reasonable, she’d cooperate fully.
Chapter 5
Mairin awoke with the knowledge that she wasn’t alone in the tiny chamber she’d been sleeping in. Her nape prickled and she carefully opened one eye to see Ewan McCabe standing in the doorway.
Sunlight peeked through the window, penetrating the gap in the furs. The light somehow made him more ominous than if he stood cloaked in darkness. In the light, she could see how big he was. He made a menacing portrait, framed by the doorway he barely fit through.
“Pardon the intrusion,” Ewan said in a gruff voice. “I was trying to locate my son.”
It was then, as she followed his gaze to the bundle beside her, that she realized Crispen had crawled into her bed during the night. He was snuggled firmly into her side, the covers pulled tight to his neck.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize …,” she began.
“Since I tucked him into my bed last night, I’m sure you didn’t realize,” he said dryly. “ ’Tis apparent he made the move during the night.”
She started to move, but Ewan held up a hand. “Nay, don’t wake him. I’m sure you both need your rest. I’ll have Gertie hold the morning meal for you.”
“T—Thank you.?
She stared helplessly up at him, unsure of what to do with his sudden kindness. Yesterday he’d been so fierce, his scowl had been enough to frighten a man out of his boots. After a short nod, he backed out of the room and closed the door behind him.